Understanding a Broken Heart
by DragonsWillFly
Summary: It takes a love stronger than one would readily admit, to understand a broken heart.


_**Author's Note: This little one shot just would not let up until I finally wrote it. It kept me from writing on any of my other fics until it was written. So if you have read my other stories, you will notice that this is not a pairing that I use, but in a way it is... Also, sorry for not having posted lately... as I said, this piece would not let me focus on anything but it (very vain piece it was!) and I was actually beta-ing for a friend of mine over on the Glee side of this lovely website. If you also enjoy Glee fics check it out! It's called 'In The Loop' under the pen name freerangeegghead. (Now I sound like a bloody advertisement! LOL! But it is all in good fun and it is a really good story!) Anyway... on to the story! Also, I would like to make a mention to Snorbie... You somewhat placed this pairing (therefore the idea) in my head months ago!**_

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Endless lies, seeping forward as you crept through the darkened room. Edges of shadows coupled with the new moon sky, mar your journey away from it all. Away from the laughter. Away from the mirth. Neither one of those are feelings you have felt since that day. The haunting ache of what could never be follows you like a plague.

It is a disease that is slowly destroying every aspect of your life, but you still allow it to continue. Slipping and sliding, twisting and turning, until you don't even recognise your own soul. The way you look out the pane-glass window, eyes staring forlornly out into the distance. Taking in everything that passes, yet seeing nothing. The torture you place yourself in just to remember that day.

You think no one knows your heart. You think no one knows what you put yourself through, day in, day out. You cloud your mind so no one can see where your thoughts truly travel. But I know... I know where it is your imagination has traversed. To the ends of the earth, to the doors of death, it has travelled. You yearn for the one thing you can not obtain. That one fleeting moment in time where you felt as though you were her's and her's alone. Upon the cold, hard wooden floors, with only your clothing separating your body from hers. Pain and pleasure had sent your soul spiralling towards hers in a way that it almost scared you. Never once did you think that in your time upon this world, would you have felt the excitement and fear of wanting another as you had wanted her.

You forgot you had told me about that. It was after the Final Battle, tears streaming down your face. I had wandered away from the throngs of people who were celebrating the end of the terror and were mourning the passing of friends and family. I walked the long broken corridors of the castle, hoping I could find you. I needed to find you, to speak to you. You of all people. The one who had been through it all, yet never received the credit you so richly deserved.

I wanted you to know, that I appreciated you. That I knew what you had done to help secure the victory of the Light.

I found you in the library. Of course you would have been there. It was the only place to find you when you wanted to seek out solace. I remember you had told me once before, that the smell of parchment helped you focus. Hiding in the back of the spacious, book-laden room, is where I found you, crying softly, curled up on the floor in a foetal position. I didn't think you had even noticed I had came near to you, no one ever seems to notice me, until you spoke. "I can't believe it is over..."

"It is over. But, the memory will always remain." I say as I lower myself to the floor beside you. I thought you would have shied away from me, but you moved closer until your head lay in my lap. Running my hand through your unruly hair, I stare out across the expansive room. This was the only room that the battle had not seemed to touch. It sat as it always had, but the echoes of what had happened outside its walls sounded throughout the silence. "The hurt will take a long time to heal... for everyone."

Tears still fell down your face, though you thought I could not notice. Mumbling under your breath, I had to strain to understand what you had said. But, the haunting melodies of your words reverberate through my mind. "But what if I don't want them to heal?"

Such a tiny question revealed so much to me that day. I never answered you, I didn't have to. It was never for me to hear, but one can never unhear what they have heard. I knew you had been broken after that horrifying night. The screams echoed through my mind for weeks every time I closed my eyes, but I never knew how broken. So, I just sat there. Your head in my lap, comforting you, as best as you would let me, until the lasts remnants of sunlight faded from the frame of the window and the stars twinkled in the black expansive sky.

Muttering silently to yourself, your devastated soul thought, in my silence, that you were alone. That is when you bore your heart aloud. You thought your confession was only heard by parchment and leather, when in fact I bore witness to your profession as well. My heart sank to hear such words leave that beautiful mouth of yours. Each groan for the witch that will never come back, bit into my heart.

Weeks later, you seemed more yourself, and we continued our pretended that everything was allright between us. I even encouraged the sham. Anything, to keep you from the pain you had felt while you laid broken on the library floor. The weeks turned into months, which turned into years. We finally decided to move into together, to further our relationship. Even now as you sigh and stare out the window, looking in the shadows, for darkened hair that is not there. I pretend not to notice.

Hermione, I know that your heart will never fully be mine. I accept that. And if I have to share it with a witch, long since deceased, then I understand. Most people, if they ever find out (which they never will), would call me Looney for how I feel towards you, when I know what lay behind the shadows of your mind. But how could that name ever hurt me, when I was called it during our whole time at Hogwarts?


End file.
